Lean Marketing House » Kaizen

Kaizen is Always Individual

admin — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 03:35:00 +0000

Last spring, Dr Balle the Gemba Coach at the Lean Enterprise Institute and I had a conversation on Kaizen which resulted in an 8-week series of videos and a podcast. This is a 34 page transcription of the discussion. I think you will find it entertaining and will provide a different way of viewing coninuous improvement and Kaizen.

An excerpt from the transcription:

Joe: Michael, when you talk about Kaizen, you talk about Kaizen on an individual basis. Can you explain that?

Michael Balle: Absolutely. Kaizen is always individual. There’s a difference in perspective, and we’re very biased by our Taylorist pasts. Our understanding we usually have is that performance is the result of processes. We all buy that, and its fine. Our thinking is that if you hit each of these processes with an improvement project, and people call it Kaizen but it’s not, then the results should be improved performance.

Evidence over the past 20 years has shown that this is not the case. What you do have is quick hits. You can have some savings, or you have some low‑hanging fruit, but you don’t have the improvement we’re looking for.

The other way of looking at this is that any process is just a collection of individuals. If each individual is better at their job, then collectively they will come up with a process that performs better and delivers in performance. I think this is the key to understanding. Kaizen is an individual activity to make you better at your job. This is something we see with Lean students.

After studying Lean for a while, you ask them the question, "Do you feel you’re mastering Lean better?" and they say, "Well, no. The system, it seems still as mysterious and deep and hard to master." You ask them the second question, "Are you better at your jobs? Do you feel you’re better at your jobs?" They say, "No debate, Absolutely, yes." They’re confident that they’re a lot better at their jobs. This is what Kaizen is about.

Kaizen is about improving you, Joe. By doing Kaizen, you will improve how you see your job and how you perform at your job. This will make you stop making some classic mistakes, for this will also make you discover innovative ways of doing your job.

As we all pull together with a deeper understanding of our jobs, we create processes that our competitors can never touch. In order to hold those better processes, each of us has to be better at our jobs.

Dr. Balle went on to say:

Really, the essence of Kaizen is building people an understanding, a vision, of the waste their technical choices imposes on the work chain. It is an individual thing as it is their technical choices and it is a collective thing as it’s not the waste they impose on themselves but the waste they impose on their suppliers, the waste they impose on their internal customers.

This conversation was one of the reasons I delayed publishing the Lean Engagement Team and more specifically the chapter on the iCustomer and iTeam. It did not change my thinking of teamwork and individual responsibility but it did re-frame the way I viewed and described those two subjects. The book is available as a PDF download on the Business901.com website or on Amazon:
Lean Engagement Team (Marketing with Lean, Volume 2) [Ring-bound]
Lean Engagement Team (Marketing with Lean, Volume 2) [CD-ROM]

The Kaizen Series
Dr. Balle Friday Video Series
Audio Collection of Dr. Balle on Kaizen

Is PDCA the culture of Lean?

admin — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 04:13:00 +0000

I have always considered PDCA as the culture of Lean. I get frustrated when I hear about Lean only discussed in terms of flow and waste reduction. In a recent Business901 Podcast, Gemba Coach talks PDCA, Dr. Michael Balle and myself had a discussion on this subject. This is a transcription of the podcast.

Gemba Coach talks PDCA

View more documents from Joseph Dager.

Dr. Balle is a multiple Shingo Prize winner as an author of the The Gold Mine and The Lean Manager. His newest Shingo Prize was on the adaption of The Gold Mine: A Novel of Lean Turnaround to an audiobook that features performances by multiple readers who bring its realistic business story and characters to life.

Dr. Michael Balle is the Gemba Coach at the Lean Enterprise Institute

Little Bets – The Way to take an Affordable Risk

admin — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 02:41:00 +0000

Start Small, Iterate a lot, Scale – that’s the advice from Peter Sims, the author of the new book Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries. When reading the book, you can’t help but think about Eric Ries of The Lean Startup fame. Eric characterizes his Little Bets with the description of the Pivot. The resounding theme of both of these authors is of PDCA and testing a hypothesis. Listen to Peter Sims version:

Peter’s book is refreshingly entertaining citing numerous examples from Chris Rock to Pixar on how they use Little Bets in their development of a comedy skit to a full scale “Pivot” (Pivot has become mainstream – Eric) by Pixar. If you’re a Lean enthusiast and/or a devoted follower of the Lean Startup you will find this book worthwhile reading. Great take on the subject and examples of working and developing your hypothesis in real life.

"I have always believed that constant innovation is core to success. The methods Peter Sims provides in the highly engaging Little Bets will help you challenge the status quo and discover extraordinary new possibilities in whatever endeavor you’re engaged in." — Howard Schultz, chairman and CEO, Starbucks

Using A3 to introduce Lean – Dr. Balle Video

admin — Thu, 19 May 2011 02:22:00 +0000

Lean technology has now evolved from the manufacturing floor to the whole enterprise. Many companies have found real value in applying the fundamental concepts of Lean throughout the organization. The lean concepts of Kaizen, PDCA and the tools such as Pareto Charts, 5 Why’s and even Poka Yoke are commonplace.

As a result of discussing a Lean Enterprise with Dr. Michael Balle, I asked him about his thoughts on Introducing PDCA or A3 to services is it feasible?

Dr. Michael Ballé is a business researcher and consultant and has studied lean transformation for the past 15 years. He is Associate Researcher at Télécom Paris Tech and the co-founder of the French Lean Institute (www.institut-lean-france.fr) and the Project Lean Enterprise (www.lean.enst.fr). He coaches CEOs and senior executives in using lean to radically improve their businesses’ performances and establish lean cultures.

Dr. Balle is also a Shingo Prize winner as an author of the The Gold Mine and The Lean Manager. His newest Shingo Prize was on the adaption of The Gold Mine: A Novel of Lean Turnaround to an audiobook that features performances by multiple readers who bring its realistic business story and characters to life.

PDCA, Kaizen & Culture in a Lean Enterprise

admin — Fri, 13 May 2011 02:30:00 +0000

As a result of discussing a Lean Enterprise with Dr. Michael Balle, I asked him about his thoughts on the culture of Lean.

Dr. Michael Balle is the Gemba Coach at the Lean Enterprise Institute

Lean is not a revolution, Lean is solve one thing and prove one thing!

admin — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 03:42:00 +0000

As Dr. Balle said, “Toyota didn’t become number one by having lower manufacturing costs, they became number one by making cars people bought.”

Excerpt from the Transcription of the Business901 Podcast, Outside the Walls of a Lean Enterprise:

Joe: Before you start can you define Kaizen? Are you defining Kaizen as just continuous improvement?

Michael: Kaizen has two aspects. One aspect is problem solving, which means every production cell should work at a certain level of standard. Everything should work at a certain level. Then, because the environment changes all the time, the machinery runs down, the customer changes their mind. You know, something happens. So, we’re not at that level. We have to do is to fight very hard every day to stay at that level although the environment has changed.

The second part of Kaizen is, once you are at that level, how do you push the limit? How do you move beyond? How do you have the number of quality problems you have? How do you do the same volume work with one person less on the team in the process, but not with working harder? How do you work safer? That would be the second element of Kaizen. So one is just holding to the standards no matter what the world throws at you. The second time is once you hold your standard, how do you push yourself to actually improve the standard? That would be Kaizen, and Kaizen in terms of small, practical steps.

This is not a revolution, this is solve one thing and prove one thing. This is not turning everything around.

Outside the Walls of a Lean Enterprise

Audio Version: Gold Mine: A Novel of Lean Turnaround
The audiobook features performances by multiple readers who bring its realistic business story and characters to life. You’ll hear from: